Bombings at Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad kill at least 39

Wed, Sep 11 14:48 PM EDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A co-ordinated car and suicide bomb attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the Iraqi capital killed at least 33 people on Wednesday evening, police and medical sources said. Worshippers were leaving the mosque after evening prayers when the car bomb exploded, and as onlookers rushed to help the wounded, a suicide bomber blew himself up in their midst. Policemen saw a second man fumbling to detonate an explosive belt and managed to stop him, but an angry mob overcame them and stabbed the would-be-suicide bomber him to death. A further 55 people were wounded, some critically, in the blasts, which took place in the northwestern Kasra district of Baghdad. It was not immediately clear who had carried out the attack, but Sunni Islamist militants who view Shi'ites as non-believers, have been regaining momentum and striking on a near daily basis this year. More than two years of civil war in neighboring Syria have brought sectarian tensions to the boil in Iraq and the wider region. About 800 Iraqis were killed in August, according to the United Nations, with more than a third of the deadly attacks happening in Baghdad. The bloodshed, 18 months after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, has stirred concerns about a return to the sectarian slaughter of 2006-7, when the monthly death toll sometimes topped 3,000. (Reporting by Kareem Raheem; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Alison Williams) ============== Dozens were wounded in the violence, and locals exacted a grim revenge on one man suspected of being a second attacker in the mosque bombing, which comes amid Iraq's worst bloodshed since 2008. Authorities have sought to tackle the unrest with a string of measures ranging from massive security operations to implementing tight traffic restrictions in the capital in a bid to stem the number of car bombs. But attacks have continued to hit much Iraq, with over 4,000 people already killed in violence this year. The worst of Wednesday's violence struck the mixed north Baghdad neighborhood of Waziriyah, where a suicide bomber blew himself up at a mosque at around 6:40 p.m. as worshippers were exiting following evening prayers. At least 30 people were killed and 55 others wounded, security and hospital sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Several nearby shop fronts were also badly damaged by the blast. Immediately after the bombing, locals spotted a man they suspected was about to blow himself up as well, and gunned him down before setting his body ablaze, the sources said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack against the Tamimi Mosque, but militants linked to al-Qaeda frequently mostly announce responsibility for such attacks. Violence elsewhere in the country killed nine people, including four in the restive northern province of Nineveh. In three separate attacks in the province, which remains one of Iraq's least stable, gunmen killed three people, among them a school principal who was shot dead at his house. And in provincial capital Mosul, a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to a car killed another person. Three attacks in and around the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk left two dead, including a senior security official. A sticky bomb killed one person in south Baghdad, and another died in a roadside bombing in a town on the capital's southern outskirts, while a gunman on a motorbike killed a imam near the southern port city of Basra. Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team